About Me

Kristin Bricker is a freelance journalist and translator. She specializes in militarization, social movements, and the drug war in Latin America.

Kristin is a contributor to the CIP Americas Program. She previously served as the Security Sector Reform Resource Centre's Latin America blogger. Her work has appeared in NACLA, the Huffington Post, IPS, Foreign Policy in Focus, Counterpunch, Telesur, Rebelión, Left Turn, The Indypendent, Upside Down World, Por Esto!, The Guatemala Times, and The News (Mexico). Kristin has appeared on Al-Jazeera, Democracy Now!, Radio Mundo (Venezuela), Morning Report (New Zealand), Radio Bemba (Mexico) and various Pacifica radio programs. Her work has been cited in the Los Angeles Times, Proceso, and the Congressional Research Service's Report for Congress.

Kristin contributed a chapter about Mexico's peace movement to Global Fire, Local Sparks, published by the Indypendent.

If the evidence submitted by a coalition of organizations--including MiningWatch, the Council of Canadians, and the Sierra Club--is genuine, it demonstrates that Blackfire acknowledges that it paid a series of bribes to the Chicomuselo mayor.

The Calgary Herald reports that a coalition of anti-mining groups have submitted a Blackfire spreadsheet that "appears to show 14 payments made by Blackfire to the mayor, Julio Cesar Velazquez Calderon, and a letter to the congress of the state of Chiapas in which the company asks the mayor to be removed from office."

The Calgary Herald continues:

In a letter to the Chiapas congress in June 2009, Blackfire said the company was the victim of extortion by the mayor and made payments of about 10,000 pesos (about $1,000 Cdn) per month. The mayor then sought flights for himself, family and friends, which the company agreed to, according to the letter. But the company decided to stop the "ridiculous propositions" after the mayor asked for Blackfire to set up a sexual affair with a Playboy model.